Beach Ball Classic in Myrtle Beach great for Grand Strand businesses

2013-12-26T15:32:06Z2013-12-26T15:32:30Z

MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - The first round of
teams started to arrive Christmas night, and more are making their way to the
Myrtle Beach Area Convention Center Thursday morning for the Beach Ball Classic.

Sixteen teams from across the Carolinas, Georgia,
Ohio, New York, Virginia, Maryland, and even Toronto are traveling to the beach
to play it out on the court. The teams this year are expected to bring in big
crowds of college coaches for recruiting and also crowds of fans. There will be
an average of about six games a day, and this year organizers are sticking to
the Sunday Showdown, where there will be a 3-point shoot out and a slam dunk
contest.

But it's not just about the game, for our
area it's also about business. For the next five days, many of the 320 players,
plus thousands of families and fans will be spending time and money in
the Grand Strand.

"They
want to be a part of the community when they're here," explained Myrtle Beach
Mayor John Rhodes, the Executive Director of the Beach Ball Classic. "They want
to see what's going on because for so many of those kids and their families,
it's their first time visit to Myrtle Beach. And we get a lot of repeats back
in the summer for vacation from this."

The Classic starts Thursday afternoon with
the first game at 1:45 p.m., and the tournament will last through New Year's
Eve. But you could call it game time for all of the Grand Strand. The
basketball games kick off a round of different sporting events during the
winter and early spring.

The convention center will be busy hosting
volleyball tournaments and dance competitions. Outdoors things are expected to
be pretty busy too, with big marathons like the Myrtle Beach Marathon and the
Divas Half Marathon in North Myrtle Beach. Plus the different softball and
baseball tournaments in Grand Park by the Market Common. With these events
bringing in thousands of people to the Grand Strand in the off season, it will
be an even bigger focus next year.

Rhodes says sports tourism has already
brought in more than $100 million to the Grand Strand, and next year he
wants to beat that score.

"Finish
up 13 and kick off 14. So it brings people the opportunity to be more aware of
the importance of sports tourism to our community."

At these coming events, city officials plan
to start showing off the soon to be newest sports tourism amenity, the indoor
sports facility. The convention center expansion project was recently named The
Myrtle Beach Sports Center, and that way it will have a busy season once the
building is ready in 2015.

If
you'd like to join the crowds at the convention center for the Beach Ball
Classic tournament, it's $15 for reserve seats and $12 for general admission.

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